Diary Of A Road Runner

Mizuno Trafford 10k Sept 2008 - Cold - 51m 57s PB!

The Mizuno Trafford 10k.

After an easy training week, I had nonetheless been feeling tired in the week and over the weekend, so it was with some trepidation that I rose at 7am on Sunday morning and got ready for this race. After such a good PB in my last race, I was wondering if I could repeat such feats, and was even dreaming of a sub 50. I looked out and the weather was blessed - cold and wet!

My taxi arrived and off I went on a 20 mile Odyssey to Partington on the other side of Manchester. Had a chat with the taxi driver, and then was mostly quiet. Arrived at Partington Leisure Centre in plenty of time and had leisure to find the few toilets and the start, then soaked up the atmosphere and jogged around a bit to get warmed up.

The lineup was a bit chaotic at first, I thought we were starting at a gate, but we needed to exit the gate and then line up facing the right way (I know what I mean!). I was fairly near the back, but this has worked for me in the past. Off went the horn and off everyone went, although it took me a small while to actually reach the start line. It was all pretty crowded at first and I felt I was going slowly, so darted about a bit to get some clear road. The plan had been to start off quite slowly, about 5:10 per k, and slowly build up. I did feel I was going slowly, but the Garmin clicked over 1k in 4:30 - way too fast. But then it was another 30-40 seconds of running before the official 1k marker came up, and I thought oh no, it’s like the City of Manchester 10k all over again - that time the discrepancy between my Garmin and the markers had really messed me up, but experience must have helped this time, and I thought I would just run to the Garmin and then see what the time was at the end. So I kept going, and slowed noticeably according to the Garmin, although I didn’t feel I was going that much slower. In the early stages a few people overtook me and I overtook quite a few, a lot of the way it was fairly even. A couple did overtake me very early on and I kept them in my sights, they never got out of sight, at least! I was glad when 5k came up and I kept trying to at least not lose pace even if I didn’t feel I could increase it - I was feeling frustrated because the sense of ease I had felt in my last race wasn’t coming and I knew I would have to push my legs hard all the way to the end.

At about 8k I caught up the small group that had overtaken me earlier, and bided my time, hanging on their shoulder. At 9k, my legs were feeling heavy and I was breathing hard, but I found something within me to accelerate past them and one or two others as well, and when I looked back they weren’t going to catch me, even though I had started hurting by then and wondering if my legs were going to give out under me as I sprinted hard for the finish! I overtook another lady, and then this other lady grabbed her child from the crowd and started doing a victory approach with him, which was touching. I almost kind of let them win, but sprinted past them on the line, not because I wanted to beat them, but to get as fast a time as possible. I had not been convinced I was even on PB pace (by 5 KM I knew I would struggle to do a sub 50 for sure), but after a fumble with the Garmin which stop-started it instead of stopping it, I came out with a time of 51:57 - almost another minute off my PB of a few weeks ago, and the Garmin said I completed 10.2k as well (in which case I would have passed 10k at 51:05 according to my lap counter!). My official time was 52:08, but it took 11 seconds after the horn to actually reach the start line!

So having done a number of races, some are spot on with the Garmin, others I seem to end up running over distance - but it’s just one of those things. The sure thing is, even though I found this race harder than the last one, I in fact ran a whole minute faster than the last one - maybe that’s why it hurt! But that 4:30 start off pace needs working down, unless I can work out a way to start off like that and keep it going